Paper Authors

Erica J. Marti
University of Nevada

Erica Marti completed her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). She holds a Master of Science in Engineering and Master of Education from UNLV, and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to graduate studies, Erica joined Teach for America and taught high school chemistry in Las Vegas for four years. While her primary research involves water and wastewater, she has strong interests in engineering education research, teacher professional development, and secondary STEM education.

Hasan Deniz
University of Nevada

Hasan Deniz is an Associate Professor of Science Education at University of Nevada Las Vegas. He teaches undergraduate, masters, and doctoral level courses in science education program at University of Nevada Las Vegas. His research agenda includes epistemological beliefs in science and evolution education. He is recently engaged in professional development activities supported by several grants targeting to increase elementary teachers’ knowledge and skills to integrate science, language arts, and engineering education within the context of Next Generation Science Standards.

Erdogan Kaya is a PhD student in science education at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is working as a graduate assistant and teaching science methods courses. Prior to beginning the PhD program, he received his MS degree in computer science and engineering. He coached robotics teams and was awarded several grants that promote Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). He has been volunteering in many education outreach programs including Science Fair and Robotics programs such as First Robotics competitions. Over the past four years, he published several journal papers and presented at national and international conferences. Areas of research interest include science and technology education, STEM, and robotics in science education.

Ezgi Yesilyurt is a PhD student in curriculum and instruction/science education at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is working as a graduate assistant and teaching science methods courses. She received her MS degree and BS degree in elementary science education. She participated European Union Projects in which she conducted series of professional development programs for in-service science teachers. Areas of research interest are engineering education, inquiry learning and evolution education.

Abstract

Increasing the number of students in STEM disciplines is a priority area in U.S. education, as evidenced by government initiatives such as Educate to Innovate and STEM for All. With 17 states adopting the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), many teachers now need to incorporate engineering design practices into their curriculum. Conventional teacher training includes science, technology and mathematics; however, only a small fraction of teachers have received pre- or in-service professional development for engineering design practices. Consequently, high school in-service teachers are facing obstacles to introduce engineering to their students effectively. There is an increasing need to develop teacher’s nature of engineering and train them in engineering design practices. Accordingly, the first author developed a graduate level, NGSS-aligned engineering education curricula for high school science teachers and offered the course in 2016 in a southwestern higher education institute as part of an NSF EPSCoR grant. The nature of engineering, specifically the engineering design process, was taught to teachers in the context of an engineering challenge. In-service teachers were exposed to all steps of the cyclical NGSS engineering design process. This work in progress study used a solar water heater design challenge to expose high school in-service science teachers from a public school district to the NGSS-aligned engineering design process. The goal of our research was to examine the perceptions of in-service high school science teachers nature of engineering views and to evaluate growth in their ability to apply NGSS engineering design practices. We provide here a single-case analysis for one teacher as a pilot study for future research. The paper provides a brief overview of our case study research in regards to curriculum design, data, methods, and preliminary results. Our data sources included pre/post Nature of Engineering (NOE) assessment, in-service teacher written reflections, and assignments. At the conclusion of the course, the teacher’s understanding of the engineering design process increased and there was a slight improvement in understanding NOE.

EndNote - RIS

TY - CPAPER
AB - Increasing the number of students in STEM disciplines is a priority area in U.S. education, as evidenced by government initiatives such as Educate to Innovate and STEM for All. With 17 states adopting the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), many teachers now need to incorporate engineering design practices into their curriculum. Conventional teacher training includes science, technology and mathematics; however, only a small fraction of teachers have received pre- or in-service professional development for engineering design practices. Consequently, high school in-service teachers are facing obstacles to introduce engineering to their students effectively. There is an increasing need to develop teacher’s nature of engineering and train them in engineering design practices. Accordingly, the first author developed a graduate level, NGSS-aligned engineering education curricula for high school science teachers and offered the course in 2016 in a southwestern higher education institute as part of an NSF EPSCoR grant. The nature of engineering, specifically the engineering design process, was taught to teachers in the context of an engineering challenge. In-service teachers were exposed to all steps of the cyclical NGSS engineering design process. This work in progress study used a solar water heater design challenge to expose high school in-service science teachers from a public school district to the NGSS-aligned engineering design process. The goal of our research was to examine the perceptions of in-service high school science teachers nature of engineering views and to evaluate growth in their ability to apply NGSS engineering design practices. We provide here a single-case analysis for one teacher as a pilot study for future research. The paper provides a brief overview of our case study research in regards to curriculum design, data, methods, and preliminary results. Our data sources included pre/post Nature of Engineering (NOE) assessment, in-service teacher written reflections, and assignments. At the conclusion of the course, the teacher’s understanding of the engineering design process increased and there was a slight improvement in understanding NOE.
AU - Erica J. Marti
AU - Hasan Deniz
AU - Erdogan Kaya
AU - Ezgi Yesilyurt
CY - Columbus, Ohio
DA - 2017/06/24
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Board # 98 : High School Science Teachers' Views of Nature of Engineering and Application of Engineering Design Practices (Work In Progress)
UR - https://peer.asee.org/27967
ER -